Drag-On Dragoon!
A story of a desperate yet bloodthirsty man who seeks out revenge on the empire who took nearly everything from him. This man is Caim, and desperate to continue living after being severely injured and on the brink of death, he makes a pact with a beast of the same species of the one who killed his parents, a dragon. In exchange for his and the dragons continued lifespan, he sacrifices his voice and the story begins here. If that doesn't sound like one of the coolest premises for a story ever, I don't know what does.
Drakengard is one of the coolest video games I've ever played, you can play in three different level stage modes, a stage mode where you fly on the back of the dragon in the sky, fighting airborne enemies, a stage mode where you fly around in the air but fight ground enemies, and a stage mode where you battle alone on the ground in a Dynasty Warriors type of game play, and although that is the most common yet least interesting stage mode type in this game, the variety is still incredibly awesome.
The game's plot isn't too interesting and may be a bit cliche for a lot of people, but for an avid lover of dragons, revenge stories and man versus society type of themes, this story was insanely awesome. But what really made this game stand out for me was just how beautiful the bond between Caim and the Dragon became, born from desperation and dependency growing into understanding and willing. Their relationship is explored differently through the various branches of the story, and can vary of heartbreaking to beautiful.
I don't have a lot to say about the visuals, it isn't really my type of thing at all, but I did appreciate how it did convey a darker and serious story than I'm used to a lot of the time, though that's only because I'm not used to playing games that look like this a lot, it may just be generic looking to most people.
Lastly, the music. I like it. The soundtrack was composed by Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara, composers I am not familiar with at all, Aihara apparently did something for Children of Mana, but yeah. The soundtrack is decent and nothing to write home about, but I quite enjoyed it for this story. It isn't something I would listen to on my own, but I will admit for this game it does really well, giving off this spooky, serious and heated atmosphere, fitting for a slaughtering sociopath out for revenge with his dragon partner.
Now that I'm done singing praises about this game, what keeps it from being an absolute masterwork for me? The game play, while awesome in concept, could really do some reworking to be something truly great, I mentioned how having three stage types made the game feel like it had variety, it does, but in each moment and in each individual stage, they tend to feel very samey and kinda boring, this is especially true about the ground battles. I also feel like most of the characters are really uninteresting and sometimes I just want to skip what they are saying to proceed this story. The story can also be weirdly paced because of the less interesting aspects of the story that involve those rather boring characters.
Overall though, I thought this game was really cool! And I look forward to seeing what this series has to offer, I originally went into it with the intention of playing Automata first, but I think these games are cooler because it has something to keep my attention, dragons, so lets hope the next entry is better than the first! Despite not being directed by Yokotaro, yes I will play Drakengard 2 next.
A story of a desperate yet bloodthirsty man who seeks out revenge on the empire who took nearly everything from him. This man is Caim, and desperate to continue living after being severely injured and on the brink of death, he makes a pact with a beast of the same species of the one who killed his parents, a dragon. In exchange for his and the dragons continued lifespan, he sacrifices his voice and the story begins here. If that doesn't sound like one of the coolest premises for a story ever, I don't know what does.
Drakengard is one of the coolest video games I've ever played, you can play in three different level stage modes, a stage mode where you fly on the back of the dragon in the sky, fighting airborne enemies, a stage mode where you fly around in the air but fight ground enemies, and a stage mode where you battle alone on the ground in a Dynasty Warriors type of game play, and although that is the most common yet least interesting stage mode type in this game, the variety is still incredibly awesome.
The game's plot isn't too interesting and may be a bit cliche for a lot of people, but for an avid lover of dragons, revenge stories and man versus society type of themes, this story was insanely awesome. But what really made this game stand out for me was just how beautiful the bond between Caim and the Dragon became, born from desperation and dependency growing into understanding and willing. Their relationship is explored differently through the various branches of the story, and can vary of heartbreaking to beautiful.
I don't have a lot to say about the visuals, it isn't really my type of thing at all, but I did appreciate how it did convey a darker and serious story than I'm used to a lot of the time, though that's only because I'm not used to playing games that look like this a lot, it may just be generic looking to most people.
Lastly, the music. I like it. The soundtrack was composed by Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara, composers I am not familiar with at all, Aihara apparently did something for Children of Mana, but yeah. The soundtrack is decent and nothing to write home about, but I quite enjoyed it for this story. It isn't something I would listen to on my own, but I will admit for this game it does really well, giving off this spooky, serious and heated atmosphere, fitting for a slaughtering sociopath out for revenge with his dragon partner.
Now that I'm done singing praises about this game, what keeps it from being an absolute masterwork for me? The game play, while awesome in concept, could really do some reworking to be something truly great, I mentioned how having three stage types made the game feel like it had variety, it does, but in each moment and in each individual stage, they tend to feel very samey and kinda boring, this is especially true about the ground battles. I also feel like most of the characters are really uninteresting and sometimes I just want to skip what they are saying to proceed this story. The story can also be weirdly paced because of the less interesting aspects of the story that involve those rather boring characters.
Overall though, I thought this game was really cool! And I look forward to seeing what this series has to offer, I originally went into it with the intention of playing Automata first, but I think these games are cooler because it has something to keep my attention, dragons, so lets hope the next entry is better than the first! Despite not being directed by Yokotaro, yes I will play Drakengard 2 next.
VGMRadio
1 year ago